Rendezvous With Rama ?

In an intriguing parallel with Arthur C. Clarke’s sci-fi novel Rendezvous With Rama, Seti researchers now plan to use a powerful telescope to study an unusual space object which recently flew into our solar system.

In Clarke’s original 1973 tale, astronomers become excited when a large new asteroid is detected in the outer solar system. It has an abnormal light curve which indicates it is spinning and has a long thin cross section. The astronomers who had long ago exhausted Greek and Latin mythology and are now working through the Hindu pantheon christen it Rama.

The object turns out to be a giant hollow cylinder, a space-ark from an alien civilisation far outside the galactic plane.

In real life, scientists have christened the latest visitor Oumuamua, a Hawaian word meaning ‘scout or messenger’, because it was astronomers from an observatory in Hawaii who first spotted it.

The mysterious needle shaped object is our first visitor from another part of the galaxy to make it into our solar system. It flew past in October and the trajectory indicates it entered our solar system from almost 90 degrees above the orbital plane of our system

It is long and cigar-shape. While it is hundreds of metres long, it's only one tenth as wide – and it is very unusual for asteroids to come in such non-round forms.

The body is travelling quickly through the universe, at up to 196,000mph, and looks as if it will not get wrapped up in our sun's gravity but fly right through and out of the solar system.

The Breakthrough Listen team is using the Green Bank radio telescope in West Virginia, US, to study Oumuamua.

The object is currently about two astronomical units (AU) from Earth, or twice the distance between the Earth and sun.

Even if no evidence of extraterrestrial technology is found, the search could provide important information about gases surrounding Oumuamua or the presence or absence of water, say the researchers.

"On far-off Earth, Dr Carlisle Perera had as yet told no one how he had woken from a restless sleep with the message from his subconscious still echoing in his brain: ‘The Ramans do everything in threes’ - (Rendezvous With Rama)

Re: Rendezvous With Rama ?

Yes, I thought of Clarke right away when I first saw the graphic a couple weeks ago. Am not sure the "non-round form" is quite as unusual as the article suggests. Rocks of that size don't have enough mass to induce them towards the rounder shape. Slivers of irregular shape break off and retain that shape, AFAIK.

Re: Rendezvous With Rama ?

Of course Rama was 54 km long with a diameter of 20 km and rotated along its long axis fast enough to create a significant artificial gravity effect for its interior. Oumuamua is 180 meters by 30 meters, and tumbles end over end at a rate so slow, that even if it were hollow, standing at the ends would not be, for most practical purposes, much better than being at zero g. ( you would be experiencing 0.0023g, meaning a 160 lb person would weigh a bit under 6 oz)

Re: Rendezvous With Rama ?

The Seti Breakthrough Listen team have scanned Oumuamua with their radio telescope across four major frequency bands ranging from 1 gigaherz to 12 gigaherz capturing 90 TB of data in the first two hours alone.

The scientist says that so far they have detected no evidence of artificial signals emanating from the object - not even in Klingon sadly.

"Infuriating!" screamed the Kzin, "Insulting. They deliberately ignore us. They pointedly turn their backs to invite attack"."They do not use lasers, they do not use radio,.They do not use hyperwave. What are they using for communications? Telepathy, written messages, big mirrors ?""Parrots" Louis suggested.. "Huge parrots specially bred for their oversize lungs. They're too big to fly.They just sit on hilltops and scream at each other." (Ringworld - Larry Niven)